Pets at Home said significant investment helped boost turnover in the year to 29 March as the retailer opened 32 new shops and improved its range of services for customers.

GENERAL MERCHANDISE

Pets at Home benefits from year of investment

2 November 2012 | by The Retail Bulletin

The company grew its overall turnover by 7.1% to £544.3 million from £508.2 million in 2011 while underlying pre-tax profit edged up 0.5% to £91.7 million in the year.

In addition to opening 32 new shops, Pets at Home launched 19 new in-store vet practices and 18 more grooming salons. The company, which operates 331 stores nationwide, also invested in a new distribution centre in Northampton and a sourcing operation in Hong Kong which employs 23 staff.

Pets at Home said it had made “strong progress” with sales in the first half of the new financial year as like-for-like revenues grew by 3.2% in the six months to 11 October 2012. Sales had benefited from the rollout of the retailer’s micro chipping service and an increase in the number of nutrition consultants, as well as the introduction of new ranges.

This is the first set of results reported by new CEO Nick Wood who joined the company from American Golf in April.

Wood said: “In a year of significant capital and revenue investment and against a challenging economic and retail background, it is extremely pleasing to report further growth in turnover and profit.

“Encouragingly, from these investments we have built good momentum into the current financial year with like-for-like sales growth of 3.2% for the first half.

“Whilst there remains a great deal of uncertainty for consumers with little prospect of any real improvement in disposable incomes in the near future, we remain focused on delivering exceptional value for our customers.”

"We believe that this, together with new stores and trading formats, new product and service innovations and the continued exceptional engagement of our colleagues will be the basis of another year of growth."